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“We simply cannot shut down every food processing plant in Alberta or in Canada because that would create an obvious crisis in terms of food security,” he said.
Fair enough, but nobody — not even the union — is asking to shut down the plant. What they’re asking for is input from workers as well as earlier and better oversight of these businesses.
The Cargill employee who died on April 19 was a woman in her 60s. Her 67-year-old husband, also an employee with Cargill, was hospitalized from the coronavirus.
Marichu Antonio, executive director of Action Dignity, says the woman, originally from Vietnam, started feeling sick part way through her shift on April 9. She stayed home the next day as the entire plant was apparently shut down on Good Friday. She went to hospital on Saturday and was dead by Sunday.
“Her husband never got to say goodbye to her and now he’s so depressed,” said Antonio, whose group is helping him and many of the other infected employees’ families.
“These workers are being treated like they are not human beings,” said Antonio.
Alberta is indeed an outlier in workplace safety and that’s a very bad thing.
Licia Corbella is a Postmedia columnist in Calgary. [email protected]
